Living in the Spirit
May 28, 2015

Scripture Reading: Romans 8:12-17

So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. –Romans 8:12-15

I worked as an adoption specialist for a couple of years at the beginning of my career as a social worker. One of my tasks was to do the adoption study that determined whether an individual or couple would meet the standards required to care for a child. These adoption allplicants also specified what type of child or children they wanted. Having also worked with many teen parents, I wished often that someone had touched their lives at some point to help them understand that postponing parenthood might result in better outcomes for the parent and the child. It was an odd place to find myself caught between those wanting children and those having them whether they wanted them or not. It was also the time in our culture when most teen parents were beginning to choose to keep their babies.

It struck me when I read our scripture today that God accepts any who come to God just as they are—not only an infant whose mother had no history of drug abuse, did well in school, and knew who the father was. As an adoption worker, I thought it was important that potential adoptive parents recognize what they could handle and what they could not, because as an adoption worker, I experienced the pain of receiving back children returned from adoptions that did not work.

God though takes us all, and works to make each of us whole. What a blessing, what a gift of love is the adoption of God.

Prayer: Lord, we thank you for receiving us as your precious children and for your continuing love that makes us whole. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.